The commander descended the spiral staircase, his armored boots echoing against the ancient stone. The air thickened with every step—damp, cold, and heavy with the scent of rusted iron and forgotten blood. Torches along the walls sputtered as though reluctant to burn in this place, their flames bowing low before an unseen power.
He knew where these stairs led. Few dared tread them, fewer still returned.
The bottom opened into a cavernous chamber. Its entrance loomed like the maw of a beast, jagged arches carved not by craftsmen but by time itself.
The commander halted, his eyes narrowing. Beyond the black threshold, faint runes glowed—sigils of containment, of binding. They pulsed with an unsettling rhythm, like the last beats of a dying heart.
And in the center of it all… a boy.
Or at least, he wore the skin of one.
The figure slumped forward, body chained from every angle—wrists, ankles, neck, even his mouth sealed with a cruel iron clasp etched with binding glyphs. A lattice of silvered chains crossed his chest and tethered him to the obsidian pillar behind. The commander's gaze swept over him: skin pale as moonlight, hair falling in a tangled mane, and around his body swirled remnants of something greater than flesh. Sigils spun in slow orbit, fractured spells of time itself, caught in endless repetition like broken clocks grinding forward and back.
The boy was no ordinary captive.
The commander's lips tightened. So he still lives… after five hundred years.
Once, he had known this child—not as a friend, but as a storm that had shaken empires. A calamity in human form. Nations burned in his wake, armies dissolved into ash. And yet here he lay, imprisoned, forgotten by all but the Empire who kept him caged as both trophy and weapon.
The commander felt the weight of centuries pressing on his shoulders. Why now… why is he stirring?
A voice, faint but sharp as a blade's edge, cut through the silence.
"You've come… again."
The commander froze. The boy's eyelids trembled, then opened.
What stared back at him were not the eyes of a child 15 years old. They were vast, fathomless pools where time itself seemed to drown. Shadows coiled behind them, an abyss that knew too much, had seen too much.
And then—
The runes shattered.
A sound like a thousand bells breaking at once tore through the chamber. The commander flinched as the very stone walls cracked, chains splintering into molten sparks. Sigils of containment blinked out, their power extinguished like dying stars.
"Five hundred years…" The boy's muffled words rumbled through the iron clasp. "Five hundred years of silence… ends now."
His body convulsed, and in that moment the world itself recoiled. The air thickened into a crushing weight. Time staggered, stuttering between seconds. Then, with a single exhale—
Boom.
The chamber did not merely collapse; it unmade itself. The explosion burst upward, swallowing the forest above.
On the outskirts of the jungle, life still moved in its fragile rhythm.
Slums stretched for twelve kilometers along the forest's edge, a sprawling maze of shacks stitched together from wood, rusted tin, and scraps of forgotten cities. Smoke from cooking fires curled into the afternoon sky. Children ran barefoot through the dust, their laughter weaving between cries of merchants hawking stale bread.
Then the world stilled.
A silence spread like frost across glass. Dogs whimpered and bolted for cover. Oxen pulling carts halted, their ears flicking nervously. Mothers glanced upward, sensing something before their children did.
Birds erupted from the treetops. Ravens by the hundreds, then thousands, slicing across the sky in a black wave. Their caws cut sharp against the silence, an omen that made the slum-dwellers pause mid-step. Even the insects fell quiet.
Eyes turned toward the forest.
A low vibration pulsed through the earth, rattling clay pots and spilling water jugs. The air grew heavy, suffocating. Somewhere deep inside, every creature felt it: a primal terror, the knowledge of an ancient predator's return.
"Run!" someone cried, though there was nowhere to run.
The first blast of wind struck. Leaves, dirt, and roofs ripped away, sucked toward the forest as though the world itself were inhaling. Children screamed, clinging to their parents. The sky darkened, clouds spiraling into a vortex above the treeline.
And then the forest detonated.
It was not fire that bloomed but raw force, a shockwave of such violence that the air itself shredded. Trees were uprooted like weeds, flung skyward before being torn apart mid-air. The roar drowned every voice, every prayer.
The slums stood ten kilometers from the heart of the explosion. It was not enough.
The wave hit like the fist of a god. Huts collapsed instantly, wooden beams snapping like twigs. Walls folded inward, trapping the people inside before disintegrating into splinters. A thousand screams were extinguished in a single breath. The earth buckled, splitting open into jagged chasms that swallowed entire families.
For a heartbeat, there was only blinding white.
Then came the fire.
The commander stumbled, his body screaming in pain. His armor hung in pieces, scorched by the blast, blood running down his arm in steady rivulets. Every breath was fire in his lungs, but he forced himself forward.
There was no time to rest.
He ran—half-limping, half-dragging himself—through the outskirts of the ruined jungle, past the skeletal remains of huts and the charred earth that still smoked. His vision blurred, but he fixed his mind on one thing: the nearest telephone booth.
The Raven Empire had to know "He has awakened"
At last he reached the booth—a crooked, half-broken thing standing like a relic from another era. He slammed the receiver against his ear, dialing with trembling fingers. The line crackled, voices cutting in through static.
"This is Commander Veyhn… calamity… awake…" he gasped, voice ragged. "The boy… he's out—no, the slums are gone, the forest is gone! Inform the High Circle! Seal the borders! DO IT NOW—!"
His voice broke into coughing, blood splattering against the glass. But the message was sent. His duty, for now, was done.
Back at the heart of the crater, the boy lay sprawled across the scorched earth. His chest rose and fell weakly, breath ragged, the remnants of power still crackling faintly around him. For all his might, centuries of slumber had left his body frail, hollow.
His consciousness slipped. Darkness pressed in—until the screech of metal jolted his senses.
Through half-lidded eyes he caught a glimpse: a truck. Not a wagon of the empire, nor a carriage pulled by beasts, but something out of place, something of the war truck ? Its engine growled, alien to this land.
Headlights blinded him, casting his pale body in harsh light. He tried to move, to raise a hand, but his limbs refused him. His vision collapsed into blur, then darkness.
And silence.
A week later.
Luna sat by the library's window, newspaper spread across her lap. Her eyes scanned the front page, lips tightening with every word.
"Forest Crater Incident – Thousands Dead. Empire Declares Silence."
[Millions dead , Millions starving ]
Date: 7th of Emberfall, Year 1790
Headline: "Forest Crater Incident – A Tragic Accident, Order Maintained"
From the desk of the Ministry of Order
Citizens of the Raven Empire, do not be alarmed. Reports of a destructive blast on the outskirts of the eastern jungle have been greatly exaggerated by rumor and fearmongers. The High Circle assures us that the incident was caused by an unstable magical relic, buried since the Old Wars and disturbed by illicit smugglers who sought to plunder forbidden ruins.
The resulting accident, while regrettable, has been contained. Though the nearby slums suffered tragic losses, the Empire is already mobilizing relief for survivors and promising reconstruction efforts. Any claims of "monsters," "dark sorcery," or "unearthly boys" are unfounded hysteria.
All citizens are reminded that spreading unverified tales will result in penalties, as panic only serves the enemies of the Raven Empire. Remain vigilant. Remain loyal. The Empire protects.
But beneath this polished official statement, Luna's sharp eyes found the less noticed report, tucked into a corner, squeezed between obituaries and shipping records:
"Eyewitness Account: Local survivors claim they saw a pale boy within the crater before collapsing. Some allege a machine—described as a 'truck'—was also sighted fleeing the scene, though no such device exists within the Empire. These accounts have been dismissed as trauma-induced illusions and are not recognized by the Ministry."
The correct data is yet to found out but the estimations suggest that over a million people near slums of the outskirts of aboundend forest has died.
Luna lowered the paper slowly. Her heart thudded.
"A truck…" she murmured again, the foreign word tasting heavy on her tongue. The Gazette might try to bury it, but she knew what she had read. The report was small, careless, yet too specific to be chance.
Her assassin's instincts screamed that this was no accident. The calamity boy, the impossible vehicle, the Empire's rushed cover-up—
The threads no longer wove into the fabric of a single world.
And she, sitting with ink-stained hands in the library's quiet, felt the line between reality and fiction bending.
The Empire could lie. The world could twist.
But Luna?
She would find the truth.
....